


Five

by like_a_raven



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, First Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-09
Updated: 2012-09-09
Packaged: 2017-11-13 21:46:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/508045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/like_a_raven/pseuds/like_a_raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only excuse he has is that he must have momentarily lost his mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five

**I. Touch**

  
The only excuse he has is that he must have momentarily lost his mind.  
  
But there's this one wayward lock of Lily's hair that's been falling in her face all day, and he's watched her try to ignore it and then shove it back behind her ear, with increased agitation, in Charms, and in Potions, and at lunch, and in Transfiguration, and at dinner.  
  
And it comes loose again now, falls in front of her left eye as they're standing in the corridor. She's telling him about something that's no doubt Very Important and that he will be expected to know for some Head Boy reason or another, but he's not really listening because all he can do is stare at that one lock of her hair.  
  
And then -- seriously, he must have lost his mind -- he reaches out and brushes it back behind her ear before she can.  
  
Lily breaks off mid-sentence, eyes wide.  
  
And that was stupid, stupid, _stupid_ , because finally this year she's started talking to him like she doesn't think he's barely one evolutionary step removed from a slug, like they might have a shot at managing to be friends, if nothing more, and then he had to go and do that.   
  
Because for a second it had seemed like the simplest and most logical thing in the world, to reach out and touch her hair.  
  
And any second now the shock'll wear off, and she'll start yelling, or just hex him and walk away and never speak to him again, or maybe she'll just go on staring at him. He should probably start apologizing right now and maybe just keep apologizing until Christmas or Easter or sometime after graduation. James opens his mouth to say that he's sorry, that he's an idiot, that he's a sorry idiot --  
  
And that's when Lily Evans kisses him.  
  
  
 **II. Taste**  
  
James Potter tastes like oranges.  
  
Which is unexpected.  
  
Oranges.  
  
They seem so . . . wholesome, and that's a word she's never used for anything related to him before.   
  
And since she can't even remember anything with oranges at dinner, she definitely did not expect James to taste like them.  
  
Not that she knows what she _was_ expecting.   
  
And not that she _had_ expectations, of course, except that she did. She'd be lying if she said she hadn't been thinking about this for weeks now. She's been catching herself studying his mouth and wondering what it would be like to kiss him, even if she's barely admitted that to herself, never mind to anyone else.  
  
But she didn't expect oranges.  
  
Not that she's complaining. Lily likes oranges. She rather likes kissing James, too, it turns out.  
  
And then his hands slide down her arms, from her shoulders to her waist, pulling her closer, and her arms go around his neck, and _like_ is suddenly far too weak a word for her opinions on kissing him.  
  
  
 **III. Scent**  
  
It's the scent of her that convinces James that he's not imagining it.   
  
Because he has no trouble admitting that he's wondered, and thought, and dreamt about something like this hundreds -- or thousands -- of times, seen it play out dozens of ways. Almost all of which had featured him being rather smoother than he actually managed to be, and none of which involved calling himself stupid, so maybe that's proof it's really happening, too.  
  
Mostly, though, it's the fact that he can smell her, because even his brain, creative as it is, never thought to add smells to his imaginings.  
  
Which was definitely a shortcoming, because Lily smells amazing, and he doesn't know if it's perfume or just _Lily_ , not that he cares overly much.  
  
She smells clean, but not like soap. And somehow . . . soft, sort of like sunlight, which doesn't actually have a smell, and like spring, but not like flowers.   
  
And then there's a hint, just a hint, of something deeper and richer, but it's elusive, and when he tries to focus on it, he can't find it.  
  
Not that he's really capable of focusing on anything right now. It's too much to take in, and every time she does something like move her fingers from the back of his neck into his hair, there are a hundred new reactions to process, and his brain has stopped even trying to keep up with them all.  
  
There's really only room for one coherent thought amid all the information flooding his mind, and that's what he says, against her mouth.  
  
"Lily."  
  
  
 **IV. Sound**  
  
She freezes when he says her name, startled.  
  
She's never heard him call her by her Christian name before, never heard _anyone_ say it quite like he just said it, even other boys who were kissing her at the time.  
  
And then, for a moment, she can't hear anything but her own pulse, elevated to racing and thudding in her ears.  
  
Because the way he said her name makes her just slightly feel like she's been claimed. Which is ridiculous, completely ridiculous, because she's only kissed him once.  
  
Well, all right, at this point she's not sure if this counts as one kiss or a very closely spaced series of kisses, but either way, she'd never kissed him two minutes ago.  
  
And even putting aside that it's way too soon to be thinking like that, there's the whole issue of thinking like that at all, ever. Because it's chauvinistic and stupidly old-fashioned, antiquated, _archaic_ even, and completely daft and like the thoughts of some ninny of a heroine out of a bad novel and . . .   
  
And it's true, and God help her, she doesn't care one whit about all the reasons it shouldn't be.  
  
So she does the only thing there is to do, says the only thing she can possibly say, even though she has to stop kissing him to do it.  
  
"James."  
  
  
 **V. Sight**  
  
For a moment, they just stand there and all James can think is that the world is not the place it was this morning.  
  
For one thing, it's a little blurry, which probably has to do with the fact that his glasses are halfway down his nose and more-than-askew.  
  
He takes one hand off her waist and raises it to straighten them, push them back to their place at the bridge of his nose.  
  
And then he looks at her -- really _looks_ at her -- inches away and more beautiful than he's ever seen her, with her lips swollen and her cheeks flushed and her eyes --  
  
He can seen himself reflected in her eyes.  
  
Which leaves him awestruck and staring, because in seventeen years, nothing has ever felt right quite the way seeing himself in Lily's eyes does. Not finding his wand, not being sorted into Gryffindor, not transforming into a stag for the first time, not flying, nothing.  
  
And then the intensity of his gaze makes her look away with a small self-conscious laugh, turning her head and dropping her chin a little.  
  
Which dislodges that same lock of hair, and it falls back across her face.  
  
And James, with a smile that turns into a grin, all joy and triumph, reaches out and brushes it back behind her ear again.


End file.
